What is a broker open house?

A listing agent puts out lunch, usually on a Tuesday, and the area's agents walk the new listing for their buyers. It's agents only, not buyers.

How do I find broker opens in my area?

Drive the new-construction neighborhood and look for signs, search the MLS for broker open, and search Instagram for the same words in your city.

What should a photographer do at a broker open?

Offer the listing agent free photos of the event, the spread and the agents in the kitchen, and send them that afternoon. Then message everyone in the room on Wednesday.

Answers › Getting agents

Ask the agent

What is a broker open and why should I be there?

So you’re telling me agents do cold calls too? I’m calling and texting five, six hours a day and nobody’s answering. Where are these people?Asked by a photographer on Quincy Hankins, Houston, Texas

A broker open is a listing agent putting out lunch on a Tuesday so the area’s agents can walk her new listing for their buyers. The people you’re calling and texting five, six hours a day aren’t at their phones. They’re standing in that kitchen together, and you’re not in it.

They’re at the broker open

A listing agent puts out lunch on a Tuesday and the area’s agents walk her new listing for their buyers. Most of the agents in your market, in one house, for an hour.

It’s a work event with lunch. The agents come for feedback on the price and a look at the house for their buyers, and they stay for the sandwiches.

You’re texting people who are standing in a room together. Five, six hours a day of calls into silence, and the silence is a kitchen full of agents eating sandwiches.

Broker opens are Tuesdays. Put them on your calendar like a shoot.

Nobody’s screening you. They’re at lunch. The phone’s in a bag on the counter, and the agent you texted is holding a plate.

Find this Tuesday’s opens tonight

Knowing the room exists is the easy part. Most photographers never find this Tuesday’s.

Drive the new-construction neighborhood behind your house and look for the signs. Search the MLS for "broker open." Search agent Instagram for the same two words in your city and scroll the week’s posts.

The signs are the fastest, and new-construction streets have the most of them.

Regular open houses only if the broker opens are dead. Those rooms are for buyers, not agents.

A buyer open house has one agent in it, and she’s working. A broker open has the whole area, and they’re eating.

Bring the camera, not a card

Now you’re in the room. What you carry decides whether anyone remembers you by Wednesday.

Offer the listing agent free photos of the event, not the house. The spread, the agents in the kitchen, the sign out front. Send them that afternoon.

The listing agent gets something she can post tonight. Every agent in the kitchen ends up in a photo with her listing behind them. You’re the one who took it.

I hosted those lunches for ten years as the agent, for feedback and a buyer. A photographer who made that spread look good online by dinner had my next listing.

That’s a different kind of introduction from a text. She’s seen your face, eaten the same sandwich, and got photos from you before you asked for anything.

You don’t come out with your hand out. You come out asking how you can be of value. It’s hard to say no to somebody who ate a sandwich next to you. Wednesday, every agent in that room gets the one-observation opener, and now it’s warm.

It’s hard to say no to somebody who ate a sandwich next to you.

The big lesson

Be in the room with a camera, not in their inbox.

Do this

Tonight, find this Tuesday’s broker opens (new-construction signs, the MLS, agent Instagram) and be at the first one with the camera.

The agent opener scripts

One observation, one question, and the day 3 and day 10 follow-ups. Free. Then take the sixty-second roadmap quiz and I tell you what to fix first.

Get the scripts Get my roadmap

Straight answers

What is a broker open house?: A listing agent puts out lunch, usually on a Tuesday, and the area’s agents walk the new listing for their buyers. It’s agents only, not buyers.
How do I find broker opens in my area?: Drive the new-construction neighborhood and look for signs, search the MLS for broker open, and search Instagram for the same words in your city.
What should a photographer do at a broker open?: Offer the listing agent free photos of the event, the spread and the agents in the kitchen, and send them that afternoon. Then message everyone in the room on Wednesday.